Brittle
by transientxsmile
Summary: There's a little something for everybody! How things might have gone down in the future...Rating might a little high, but don't want to risk it. Chapters in progress. I don't own Smallville but...
1. Chapter 1

Chloe's life changed after Lois and Clark found each other.

The three of them had always worked at the Daily Planet together; after Chloe had gone to MU and Clark off to his small town college, the two of them had worn Lois down enough to convince her to get a degree of her own. Afterwards, it had only seemed natural that they all work at the same place; Chloe got them jobs from the inside, by that time, she had been promoted to a full-fledged reporter herself. Lois and Clark (especially Clark, those super powers of his came in handy when covering a story) were brought up to her status a lot faster than it had taken Chloe to get there. Lois was more hardheaded than her younger cousin was and Clark had that special little advantage of his…not that she minded. Chloe loved working with them, it was better than the all-nighters at the Torch and made much more of an impact.

Things got a little—no, a lot—different one night as Chloe charged into Lois's office, steaming styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a newly typed article proudly in the other. She had been covering a Luthorcorp conference for the first time, normally that was Clark's area of expertise, and was eager to show them how she had done. The first sight that had greeted her as the door swung open was her two friends on top of Lois's desk with half of their clothes off. For what seemed like hours but have only been a few seconds, she watched them kiss each other and stare into each other's eyes like they were the only people alive in the universe.

That was it. Enough was enough. A muffled sob rang from her throat and she had dropped her coffee when her numb fingers could no longer hang onto it. It hit the carpet with a thud, its contents spilling across the floor like blood from a heart that could no longer function. They had looked up at her, Lois with slight pity and fear in her brown eyes, Clark with apprehension and more than a little pity in his blue ones. It was harder for her to handle the emotions frozen on their faces than it was for her to handle the fact that they were about to have sex in the Daily Planet. Lois and Clark. Together. In one of the only places that she had ever thought of as home.

Chloe had run off down the hallway, ignoring Jimmy calling her name as she ran past his office, ignoring how she was staggering towards the elevator like a drunken person in heels and that she was doomed to fall down eventually with no one to catch her.

Amazingly, she had gotten inside the elevator without tripping, falling on her face and making a fool out of her self in front of all the cretins working the graveyard shift. No one else was inside of it, so she was alone in desperately punching the button for the first floor. Chloe didn't think that Lois would go after her, but Clark might, and she couldn't listen to his explanations and apologies. She just couldn't. If she had to see the pity on his face one more time she would throw herself off of a building, the Daily Planet being the most likely candidate since this was were it had happened and since she practically lived here.

Despite herself, Chloe felt almost guilty as she fled to the safety of her Volkswagen Bug. How long had Lois and Clark been sneaking around because of her? They probably knew that she would react this way, they weren't trying to hurt her.

That didn't lessen her pain, if anything, it made it worse. If they had casually just thrown it out there, given her some time to get used to it, Chloe would have slowly but surely adapted to it and it would have been another part of life. Lois knew that Chloe still harbored her high school crush on Clark, but she wouldn't have tried to get in her older cousin's way. Lois was more of his type anyways, the kick down the door and run in with guns loaded type, willing to do anything to save a life. Chloe thought of herself as more of a sidekick than a superhero. Research girl.

Things were different now…she wasn't sure if she could ever get that image out of her head. The only thing that she could do was to act like this didn't affect her at all, try to happy for them. Lois deserved to be with someone, and Chloe wasn't about to take that away from her.

As she drove her car through the slick Metropolis streets, she noted for the first time that it was raining. Chloe laughed slightly, and the sound had an extremely hysterical tone to it. Could her night get any more cliché?


	2. Chapter 2

Everything went to hell after Lana saw Pete again for the first time in years. Lex had known from the moment that the two had spotted each other at that charity event that Lana was no longer his. She was Pete's; the same way that she had been Clark's for so long and in the way that Lex could never touch. It didn't matter that Lex and Lana had been together for longer than he had ever been with anyone. It didn't matter that he was on the threshold of proposing to her. As soon as he had heard Lana call out, "Pete!" with her voice full of joy and her eyes laughing, he knew that things were going to change for him, and not in a good way.

Lex being a Luthor and all, he had done his best to prevent his foreboding from coming true. From that moment on, he spent more time with Lana than he ever had, brought her beautiful gifts that most women only dreamed of receiving, and showed affection for her in any way possible. It helped that Pete Ross lived in Wichita and couldn't exactly run over to Metropolis whenever he wanted to. Within a few weeks of the charity event, Lex felt secure that no one was going to take away from him what was his.

Maybe that was the problem.

If they hadn't been living together, he wouldn't have noticed how high the phone bills were getting since she had last seen Pete. He also wouldn't have noticed how sometimes she was on the internet for hours, and when she finally signed off, her eyes were full of that laughter that he hadn't seen directed towards him for as long as he could remember. She stopped talking to Lex, and their conversations were limited to the meaningless small talk that was usually only reserved for people who barely knew each other. He tried not to give up, tried to get her to realize that they were meant to be together. When he told Lana this, Lex felt like he was talking to himself. She always seemed to be somewhere else.

Things had mounted to their limit when one night Lex came home from a particularly hard day at Luthorcorp and he was stressed out past all human limits. There had been mass layoffs during the past week, and union rights activists were practically rioting outside his offices. The press, of course, was having a field day.

He had entered the mansion, only wanting to sit down, take a nap, and deal with everything that had happened during the day later. It didn't happen that way. Lex had walked into the bedroom to get his tie off and lay down, feeling like he was a one hundred year old man. The first thing that he had seen was Lana packing a suitcase of her clothes from the closet, her hair pulled back in a cute sporty ponytail. Her eyes were hard with determination, and she was wearing jeans and a pink t-shirt. It was probably the t-shirt that made hit him the hardest. Lex had never seen her wear it before, and couldn't even remember the last time that he had seen her with a t-shirt. Actually, yes, he could remember. She wore them in Smallville, when she was with Clark. This thought did nothing to help his mood.

"What are you doing?" Lex asked bluntly, standing in the doorway of the bedroom that they had shared for so many years. He didn't know what was going on yet, but he had a good idea of what it was. He had seen enough movies to school him on the subject.

She spun to face him with a sharp intake of breath, almost dropping her suitcase. He had scared her, that much was obvious. She hadn't expected him to be home for another few hours. Lex didn't feel guilty about it, on the contrary, he felt angry. He had left work early because it was hard to concentrate with people outside waving signs and he had wanted to be with Lana. It didn't strike him as funny that he wanted to be with her and she wanted to leave him.

Lana spoke carefully, "Lex…I'm moving out." It seemed like she had rehearsed the words, maybe even practiced the way that she was looking at him. The whole thing was too hollow for Lex to stomach, but he stared back at her like this didn't matter to him at all.

After a pause she continued, as if she wanted to make sure that there would be no misunderstandings, "I'm going to live with Pete for a while. I think that it would be best if we…saw other people." She studied him, looking for something that showed that he understood the situation. Lex's facial expression hadn't changed, but inside he was reeling and enraged. She turned away from him to shove some more items into her suitcase, one that he had bought her the last time that she had gone with him on a business trip.

When Lana turned back around towards him, he couldn't stop himself from saying, "Why?" What he had wanted to ask really was, "How? How had this happened to us?" but that would sound too much like pleading with her. He wasn't going to try to beg her to remain with him when she wanted to be with another man. Lex still had his dignity, and his pride. He wouldn't trade those for anything, or anyone, when they had helped him survive through things that would drive many insane.

A gentle smile graced her face, and she replied quietly, "When was the last time that you said that you loved me?"

"That doesn't answer my question." Anger was beginning to vibrate through his voice, but Lana either didn't hear it or she ignored it.

"Yes, it does," Lana lost her smile and she looked at him seriously, "You're so afraid of getting hurt that you don't love anything but immaterial things, Lex. Sometimes I felt like…" She seemed to almost lose her nerve here, but forced herself to continue. "I felt like the only reason you said that you loved me to begin with was because you wanted whatever Clark had."

Lex tried to make a joke out of it. "Lana, if I wanted whatever Clark had, wouldn't I sell Luthorcorp and buy a farm? Or go work at the Daily Planet and write lies about myself?"

"It isn't all lies that they write about you. Most of it, all of it, is the truth. You're turning into your father, and I'm not the only one to notice."

This was too much. The words that she said seemed to come from nowhere, from the awkward silence that had built up over the times that they had been together. He shook his head, trying to clear it and figure out what the hell was going on here.

" If you felt this way, why didn't you say something?" he demanded, lashing out at her with his voice and thoughts, "I would have changed anything for you. All this…bullshit about me not loving you isn't true and you know it. I've never done anything but prove myself to you and then you leave me for some _boy_ that you had never had feelings for until now!"

She yelled back at him, her reserve broken, "How would you know how I feel? You don't know anything about what I feel or think!" The room was feeling too small for the both of them, hot and stifling. By the way that she was moving from foot to foot, Lana felt it too. There was a barrier between them that was killing anything polite that they could have said and prevented them from going their separate ways as friends.

Lex didn't even know what she expected him to say to her. "The only reason that I don't know is because you don't talk to me! I've done everything for you; I've given you anything that you could possibly want…" He trailed off, volume falling off into a soft whisper. All this fighting was useless and made him realize how truly tired he felt. He sat down on the edge of the four poster bed, looking at her neutrally once more, the anger still there but hidden away under the surface.

"This is both of our fault then," Lana admitted, getting such a tight grip on her suitcase handle that her knuckles whitened. "That still doesn't change anything. I love Pete, and I want to be with him. We were never enough for each other, Lex. You…you need to face that." Her eyes were starting to tear up, and Lex almost started shouting at her again. He restrained himself. Despite what she said, it wasn't her fault that she had to break up with him. It was his. It wouldn't lessen or change that fact to blame her for his shortcomings.

He smiled bitterly. "Would it change anything to say that I love you?"

"You don't mean it," she said, and he knew that she was right. "I'll…drop by again tomorrow to get the rest of my stuff. Goodbye, Lex."

He didn't say a word. There was nothing left to say. Lana stared at him, tears like rain trailing down her cheeks. After a moment's hesitation, she reached out and hugged him tentatively. Without even thinking about it, Lex embraced her back tightly. He breathed in the scent of her while he still could; that light lavender smell that always seemed to hang around her at the worst and best of times. She pulled away with a shaky smile, and strolled out of the door and out of his life.

Then, just like that, she was gone. Lex lay back on his bed, pulling the soft blue blankets over himself like a shield. Within seconds he was sleeping, fully clothed, not thinking about anything but dreaming of what could have been.


	3. Chapter 3

One week after what Chloe liked to refer to as The Incident, and things were still somewhat weird between her, Lois, and Clark. She hadn't seen them for a couple of days after the coitus interruptus, and that gave her some time to work out how to handle it when she did see the couple. Everyone had acted the way that she had thought that they would: with Clark apologizing and falling all over himself trying to be nice to her, and Lois acting like nothing unusual had happened but also being unusually nice to Chloe.

Chloe had likewise acted like there was nothing to apologize for, and pretended that everyone walking on eggshells around her was the way that they always treated her. She surprised herself by actually being okay with Clark and Lois being an item once the initial shock had worn off. There was an occasional twinge of jealousy that shook her when she saw them looking at each other the way that only lovers did, or when they played air hockey and Clark let Lois win. For the most part, however, Chloe felt like she was practically all the way back to the normal schedule of life.

Except that Clark still acted all twitchy when Lois and Chloe were in the same room, like suddenly they might leap at each other and fight to the death over him. It made her annoyed and she usually left the office when he began to act that way. It was ridiculous, things were civil between the cousins like they had always been, and even someone as extraordinary as Clark wasn't going to change that.

Chloe had never gotten a chance to show them how she had done with the article on Luthorcorp, but the editor, Perry White, had seen it and demanded that she cover the Luthorcorp conferences from then on. Clark, who had done that up until her break-through article, was actually relieved since he hated writing about business as it was all pretty much over his head. He went over to following the college football stories and the actions of the newest costumed vigilante in town.

Which was partly in fault to the way that she bumped into Lex during her attempt to get information about another, completely non-Luthorcorp article that she was working on. If Clark had been the one doing the gruntwork on Luthorcorp stories, he would have seen Lex, glared at him, and been on his way without a single passing word.

That was another way that Chloe and Clark were different. Clark always assumed that there would be a bigger story than the one that he didn't want to do, while Chloe would risk her life for the mere mention of a first page article.

She had been at one of the loudest night clubs in the city, tracking down a wily informant that had offered to tell her about a big drug ring slowly taking over the streets of Metropolis. She was more accustomed to the dark city jungle that was her home that most at the Daily Planet who had lived here all their lives.

Chloe had sat at a corner table under a black light for an hour, impatiently waiting. Her informant wasn't going to show, so she had decided to leave. She negotiated her way through the crowd on the dance floor, thinking that next time she would wear more of a no-nonsense outfit that wouldn't be getting so many looks from the drunken pervs littering the club. She was almost out the door when she accidentally knocked a man into the bar in her hurry to get out and try to salvage her night.

She winced, automatically saying, "Sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going." She would have kept going, cursing herself for being so clumsy if the man hadn't called out her name uncertainly.

"Chloe?" She knew the owner of the voice instantly, not even having to fish through her memories to puzzle it out. She had heard it often enough, at the press conferences that he gave, on CNN, in recollections of the good old days in Smallville. Lex.

Chloe stopped, staring at him. He looked the same as when she had last seen him, maybe a few days ago, maybe more informal with no tie and suit. She was suddenly very aware of how she must have looked to him, with her short plaid skirt, low-cut red blouse and high heels. This was practically a first impression she was making on him, since he probably never really saw her amidst the hordes of other reporters when she was firing questions at him over a notepad and pen.

"Lex? Wow…I wasn't expecting to see you here," she said, laughing uncomfortably and wondering if he could hear her over the blaring music.

As if in accordance to her thoughts, a sluggish rock song began playing, volume turned down as couples paired up and slowdanced in the center of the club.

He smirked, raising an eyebrow at her. "I'm offended, Ms. Sullivan. Since you seem so determined to drag Luthorcorp through the dirt, I assumed that you were watching my every movement to further bring me down. "

She rolled her eyes, inwardly chiding herself at thinking that he didn't notice her at all. Of course, he would know what she was doing; he probably read every article that even slightly mentioned him or his company. "Cut it out, Lex," she snapped, "I'm more offended than you are since you seem to think that it would be perfectly natural for me to stalk you and I am making no such assumptions. And I suggest that you stop calling me by my last name or I'll have to revert to reporter mode and start calling you by yours."

She had startled him, though he scrambled like hell to try to cover that up with a chuckle. He leaned against the bar she had shoved him into a minute before and responded calmly enough. "You're not in reporter mode right now? Funny how I hadn't noticed a difference."

"If I was in reporter mode, I'd be throwing a million questions at you about why you're putting thousands of people out of jobs and how Lana's doing and why aren't you married yet, but since I'm settling for trying to leave the club in peace, that mode is sleeping. That's the difference." Chloe was actually about to head for the door again when she saw the way that his face clouded at the mention of Lana's name. The way that he looked would have scared most people away even faster, but she had seen and been victim to much scarier things than an angry Lex Luthor.

"…Is everything okay?" Chloe asked slowly, not sure if it was any of her business but sure that she wished that someone would have asked her that after seeing Clark and Lois use a desk as a bed.

Lex glanced at her, surprised that she hadn't left at his silence. "What, don't you talk to Lana anymore?" She hadn't spoken to Lana in over a year, and even then, it was only for a few minutes. Lana Lang behaved differently when she was with Lex, like she was sad about life in general and couldn't be bothered to be happy again. Clark had always wondered why she didn't leave Lex, while Chloe wondered if Lex had noticed the change in Lana.

When Chloe shook her head, he shrugged and took a sip of the beer that he had been holding. She had thought it was weird to see him with the drink since he had always seemed above beer, more inclined towards a scotch by himself than with a few beers with friends.

"She left me. For Pete," he said shortly, not offering any more of an explanation than that and Chloe not expecting one.

She was speechless. Chloe hadn't seen Pete in months, and hadn't heard much from him about any feelings he might have for Lana besides an innocent inquiry into how she was doing. Lex was watching her for a reaction, and she forced herself to speak. "I'm sorry. How are you doing?"

He raised an eyebrow at her again, giving her a look like she was the biggest moron on the face of the planet. "I feel like shit constantly, I'm always thinking about her, and I can't get to sleep at nights so I go to crappy little nightclubs and drink by myself. How did you think that I'd be doing?"

Chloe felt bad for him, but she knew that he didn't want her pity and she didn't like getting snotty answers from someone that she was supposed to hate, even if his heart was broken right now. "I don't know, I don't think that I've ever been in your situation," she said as honestly as possible, "I'm sorry if I intruded on your lonely drinking time, I'll just be going home now." It took a lot of effort not to smack him upside the head for talking to her like that, but she didn't. All that she wanted was to leave, and since all that Lex had said to her wasn't worth much unless you were his friend or a gossip columnist (and she was neither), she may as well go.

She walked away without looking behind her, and didn't notice that Lex had followed her out until she was crossing the doorway out onto the sidewalk. He was just strolling alongside her, matching her strides evenly, just as if they were two friends taking a walk together. Chloe stopped and glared at him, trying to figure out what he was up to before she asked him, "What do you think that you're doing?"

Lex stopped too, smirking again as if he hadn't been telling her how much his life sucked less than five minutes ago. " I wanted to apoligize for being such an asshole and offer to drive you home. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Yes, I do. I live not too far from here, and it would be completely stupid to have you drive me four blocks. Besides, even if I lived way on the other side of town, I would not accept a ride from you." Chloe was striving for her tone to be firm, cool, and logical. Instead it came out like she was making excuses for herself.

"Uh huh," Lex said, sounding amused. "May I ask why you would never get into a car with me?"

She wasn't sure if she should answer that. Chloe thought about it for a while and decided to throw back, "I don't trust you."

"Uh huh," he repeated, smirking more than ever and wanting to laugh at her, "And what does that have to do with you not wanting me to give you a ride?"

For lack of a decent answer, Chloe began walking again, her heels making quiet clicking sounds against the pavement. Lex walked side by side with her, and she still didn't speak.

Her frustrated silence did nothing to annoy Lex, or if it did, he didn't show it. "Since you're ignoring me, I'll have to guess why you don't trust me, right?"

Chloe still remained silent and stared straight ahead of her as if he wasn't there.

"Is it because…I'm a Luthor?" Lex guessed randomly, knowing as soon as he said it that it wasn't right. Maybe that was why other people didn't trust him, but Chloe usually wasn't that prejusticed.

Despite that, his guess either hit a mark or she got fed up with the "game". Chloe spun around and yelled at him, "Lex, shut up. It doesn't matter **why** don't trust you, okay? You can't just stay out of my life for years and then walk in and act like you only saw me a few days ago!"

They were now standing in the middle of the sidewalk outside a short, wide brick building that housed a pub and billiards hall. An elderly couple who had exited the pub at almost precisely the time that Chloe started shouting at him gave Lex a sympathetic look and strolled away, giving Chloe wide berth in case she would suddenly decide to start screaming at them too.

Lex pretended not to see this. He threw his hands up disarmingly like she was physically attacking him instead of verbally. "It matters to me," he said quietly, "that you don't trust me. I want to be friends with you again, Chloe. I'm sorry, really sorry, that I never contacted you over all this time but since you're also trying to bring me and my company down, I think that we can call it even."

"Stop acting like I'm trying to rob you," she snapped, but she was starting to calm down and maybe even see from his point of view a little. When you're in love with someone, nothing else seems to matter, and Lex had seemed very much in love with Lana. It made sense that he wouldn't rush to pull Chloe and the rest of them into the equation. Now that Lana was gone…it had never occurred to Chloe that Lex might need some friends to help him get through this.

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "You win this round. I need to go home, so we can talk about this some other time. Alright?"

Lex shrugged, but he looked smug. "I'll take you up on that. I'll…I'll call you sometime." He sounded unsure about how that would go, not exactly used to calling women over the phone just to chit-chat. For someone who was such a great conversationalist, he very rarely indulged that skill upon just anyone.

"My cell-phone number hasn't changed. Do you remember it?" Chloe was aware that she sounded like she was challenging him, but she was past caring. It was late, she wanted to go home and change her clothes, maybe even get some sleep if she got a chance.

He nodded, and waved goodbye. She watched him walk away, then went on her own way. If Lex actually called her, she might just die of shock. The bald billionare was probably was too busy arguing with employee rights activists, and she didn't expect him to take her up on her offer. Still…

What if he did?


End file.
